CPOstrategy Recap: The Coupa Open Ecosystem

At Coupa, collaboration comes first. While we're proud of the Business Spend Management (BSM) solutions we've created and are excited to see how they benefit companies, collaboration drives our most crucial mandate: innovation.

But don't take our word for it. According to the newly-released Forrester Wave: Collaborative Supply Networks report, Coupa is a leader in this space, earning the highest scores possible in 12 criteria categories.

To empower this innovative, collaborative environment, we designed the Coupa App Marketplace. It’s an open ecosystem that allows companies, such as solution providers and independent software vendors, to build what customers need and how they need it — and then have it certified and made available for use by all Coupa customers.

Curious about how it works and what it means for organizations? Coupa's Vice President and General Manager of the Coupa App Marketplace and CoupaLink, Nigel Pegg, was recently featured in a digital feature from CPOstrategy: The Coupa App Marketplace: An innovation ecosystem for procurement transformation.

Read on for the recap.

Two critical components for change: breadth and depth

When the Coupa App Marketplace launched in August 2021, it was mostly a response to the massive market changes precipitated by Covid operations. Now, the ecosystem serves as a way to help businesses navigate new emerging challenges such as:

• Rising inflation and costs
• Geopolitical crises
• Circular economies
• Global supply chain uncertainty

"I think the business climate is always changing; now more than ever," says Pegg. "The amount of macro-level events that have been happening in the last few years is evidence that, increasingly, organizations need to be more nimble. They need to be able to change when required."

According to Pegg, this means accessing adaptability and innovation so it’s on demand to support growth and change. The Coupa App Marketplace helps organizations achieve this by offering two components critical for change: breadth and depth. The breadth is the sheer number of options — from supply chain, planning, to payment processing tools — while the depth is specific industry, geographic, and company stage requirements for everything from healthcare to oil and gas. Together these two components drive innovation and adaptability for organizations, which is vital to unlocking post-crises growth.

The value of an integrated BSM platform

As modern procurement teams look for ways to streamline processes by minimizing manual processes and reducing the risk of human error, cutting-edge spend management platforms are critical. But this is just the beginning. To get the most from these platforms they must be agile, transparent, and digitally connected to suppliers, all while being easy to navigate and use.

"One of the beautiful things is that much of the time, the user doesn't even have to be aware that they're using an app from the Coupa App Marketplace," explains Pegg, "because it's usually embedded directly inside of our system."

Consider Coupa's key partnerships with DataMap, EcoVadis, SourceDay, and TradeCentric. These collaborative and connected efforts with industry-leading companies offers key benefits, including:

• Increasing productivity by further simplifying and streamlining the user experience — with DataMap PO SmartView
• Helping hold companies to account on their sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility practices — with EcoVadis Supplier Sustainability Ratings
• Building a bridge between direct materials suppliers and a company’s ERP, enabling communication between the two — with SourceDay Supply Chain Collaboration Network
• Enabling punchout, purchase order, and invoice automation between buyers and suppliers — with TradeCentric PunchOut and eCommerce

Whether you’re looking to reduce supplier risk and improve compliance, seeking commodity insights and accurate tax calculations, or needing to connect your ERP and HCM, the Coupa App Marketplace pairs you with an ecosystem to address any challenge or need. That’s the value of an integrated BSM platform.

The case for open integration ecosystems

For Pegg, "open" is the operative word.

"We've always had an open platform," he says. "In fact, we love to say that the 'O' in Coupa stands for 'open.' And so, it's always been possible for a customer's IT department or for a system’s integration to come in and build to their heart's content to meet the specific needs of a given company."

Once a company has created an app, it can submit it for certification. If approved, the app goes live on the Coupa App Marketplace and is available for any customer to use. To ensure certified apps meet business expectations for functionality, security, and compliance, Coupa has an entire team dedicated to app evaluation and approval.

The result? Pegg puts it simply: "Coupa has created a digital ecosystem that brings suppliers, vendors, and partners together into the same room through a 'single source of truth.'"